40 Fun Facts About Hilton Hotels

Which rum cocktail does the Caribe Hilton claim its bartender Ramón Marrero created in 1954?

Piña colada is the drink the hotel says Marrero spent three months perfecting from rum, coconut cream and pineapple juice. Puerto Rico made it the island's official drink in 1978.

Which warm treat, once reserved for VIPs, does DoubleTree by Hilton hand every guest at check-in?

Chocolate chip cookie dough from DoubleTree was baked in orbit in 2019 by astronaut Luca Parmitano, who used a prototype oven aboard the ISS.

Which Beatle spent his 1969 honeymoon holding a week-long bed-in for peace at the Hilton Amsterdam?

John Lennon and Yoko Ono invited the world's press into their suite every day for a week, turning a honeymoon into an anti-war protest staged from bed.

Which dessert does the Palmer House, now a Hilton, claim to have invented for the 1893 World's Fair?

Brownie tradition credits socialite Bertha Palmer, who is said to have asked the hotel's pastry chef for a sweet smaller than a slice of cake that ladies could eat from a boxed lunch.

Which US president was shot outside the Washington Hilton in 1981 as he walked to his limousine?

Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded by John Hinckley Jr. but survived, and locals sometimes call the hotel the Hinckley Hilton.

Which singer sold out 636 straight shows at the International, renamed the Las Vegas Hilton in 1971?

Elvis Presley was booked for four weeks, but his first show was such a hit that the hotel signed him to two month-long engagements a year. He lived in a suite on the 30th floor.

Which revolutionary leader lived in suite 2324 of the new Habana Hilton for three months in 1959?

Fidel Castro made the hotel his headquarters after entering Havana and gave his first press conference in its ballroom. In 1960 he nationalized it and renamed it the Habana Libre.

Which 1960s science-fiction film shows a Hilton hotel aboard a giant rotating wheel in Earth orbit?

2001: A Space Odyssey seats a receptionist at the entrance to the Hilton on Space Station 5, where Dr Heywood Floyd stops over on his way to the Moon.

American prisoners in which war sarcastically nicknamed Hỏa Lò Prison the 'Hanoi Hilton'?

Vietnam War prisoner Bob Shumaker was the first to write the name down, carving a welcome on a pail handle for the next captive. Future senator John McCain was later held there.

Which Hollywood ceremony did the Beverly Hilton's International Ballroom first host in 1961?

Golden Globe Awards night first came to the hotel six years after Conrad Hilton opened it, and became its signature event. Talk-show host Merv Griffin later bought the property for $100.2 million.

Which reality series made Paris Hilton, the hotel founder's great-granddaughter, a household name?

The Simple Life paired Hilton with childhood friend Nicole Richie. Fox cancelled it after three seasons when the two fell out, and E! revived it for two more.

Which actress's 1950 marriage to hotel heir Conrad 'Nicky' Hilton Jr. lasted less than a year?

Elizabeth Taylor was 18 at the Beverly Hills wedding, the first of her eight marriages, and divorced him in January 1951 after only eight months.

Which Hungarian-born actress with nine husbands was married to Conrad Hilton from 1942 to 1947?

Zsa Zsa Gabor was Hilton's second wife. In 1944 he helped her parents flee Nazi-occupied Hungary, and the couple's daughter Francesca was born in 1947.

Which New York hotel, Hilton-run from 1949, gave its name to a salad of apples, celery and walnuts?

Waldorf Astoria diners first tasted the salad in 1896, at the hotel's original building. Hilton's company bought the hotel outright in 1972 and sold it in 2014 for $1.95 billion.

In which US state did Conrad Hilton buy his first hotel, the 40-room Mobley, in 1919?

Texas is where the chain began: the Mobley, in the small town of Cisco, cost $40,000. Hilton summed up his approach there as minimum cost and maximum comfort, or 'minimax'.

Which in-room fixture is the Hong Kong Hilton credited with popularising across the hotel world from 1974?

Minibar takings lifted the hotel's in-room drink sales by 500% within months, so Hilton rolled the idea out across all its hotels the following year.

Which 2015 dinosaur blockbuster features a fictional Hilton resort on Isla Nublar?

Jurassic World places the resort inside a working dinosaur theme park on the island, in a story set 22 years after the disaster of the first film.

Which singer's 1976 escape from her husband at a Hilton is retold in What's Love Got to Do with It?

Tina Turner left Ike Turner mid-tour while the pair were staying at the hotel, and described that night in her memoir I, Tina.

What did Conrad Hilton set out to buy in Cisco in 1919 before settling for the Mobley Hotel?

A bank was the plan, but the purchase fell through. The Mobley was so busy with oil-field workers that it rented rooms in eight-hour shifts, so Hilton bought it instead.

Which TV drama made Conrad Hilton a recurring character who hires ad man Don Draper?

Mad Men cast Chelcie Ross as the hotel founder, a major character of its third season, and sent the Drapers to a Hilton in Rome, a scene actually shot in Los Angeles.

Which NFL team's original owner was Barron Hilton, the son who later ran the Hilton hotel company?

Chargers founder Barron Hilton denied naming the team to plug his new credit card business, and later helped forge the AFL–NFL merger that created the Super Bowl.

Which James Bond film used the Las Vegas Hilton's exterior as the Whyte House casino?

Diamonds Are Forever has Sean Connery's Bond climb to the top floor of the building to confront its reclusive owner, the billionaire Willard Whyte.

Which company's engineer made the first handheld mobile call outside the New York Hilton in 1973?

Motorola's Martin Cooper stood on Sixth Avenue with a prototype DynaTAC and dialled his rival at Bell Labs, then walked into the hotel for a press conference.

To which US state did Hilton move its headquarters in 2009, leaving Beverly Hills behind?

Virginia's Fairfax County got the head office, which settled in Tysons, near Washington, D.C. Hilton kept an operations centre in Memphis.

What did the Hilton-run Roosevelt Hotel become the first hotel to put in its guest rooms, in 1947?

Televisions reached the Roosevelt's rooms four years after Hilton took over the Midtown hotel, a deal that helped make his chain the first to span the United States coast to coast.

Which city's airport got the 1959 Hilton Inn credited with pioneering the airport hotel?

San Francisco's airport inn joined a run of 1950s Hilton firsts, including a central reservations office that could book any of its hotels by telephone, telegram or Teletype.

In which future US state, still a territory in 1887, was Hilton founder Conrad Hilton born?

New Mexico sent him to its first state legislature at 24, but he soured on politics. His first taste of hotelkeeping was the ten rooms his father let in the family's general store.

Which Hilton brand began in Memphis in 1984 as a budget chain from the Holiday Corporation?

Hampton Inn was the first mid-price chain to offer free continental breakfast and a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. Hilton acquired it in 1999 when it bought the Promus Hotel Corporation.

Which Hilton brand is known for its atrium lobbies, glass elevators and nightly Manager's Reception?

Embassy Suites opened its first hotel in Overland Park, Kansas, in 1984, and still sells itself on two-room suites and a breakfast cooked to order.

Which island nation's Hilton resort opened Ithaa, billed as the world's first undersea restaurant?

Maldives diners at Ithaa sit five metres below the surface under a clear acrylic roof. The name means mother of pearl, and the room holds just 14 people.

Which guru did the Beatles first meet at the London Hilton in 1967, before following him to India?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi so impressed the band with his lecture there that they took a train to Wales the next day to study with him, and travelled to India the following year.

What does the 286-foot ceramic tile mosaic on a Hilton Hawaiian Village tower in Waikiki depict?

A rainbow runs the full height of the tower, which opened in 1968. The mosaic took more than 16,000 individual tiles and has been billed as the tallest of its kind anywhere.

Which private equity firm bought Hilton for $26 billion in 2007, months before the financial crisis?

Blackstone loaded Hilton with $20 billion of debt just before the 2008 crash, yet took it public again in 2013 and had sold its last shares by 2018.

Which city's 1955 Hilton is the chain's longest-operating hotel outside the United States?

Istanbul's Hilton opened with Conrad Hilton at the ceremony, its modernist slab softened with Ottoman touches by Turkish architect Sedat Hakkı Eldem.

Which rival chain did Hilton buy in 1954 for $111 million, then the biggest real estate deal ever?

Statler had been the first major hotel chain to put a bathroom in every room. Hilton kept the name on hotels such as the Statler Hilton in Dallas.

Which charge card began as Hilton's own travel-and-entertainment card before a 1958 renaming?

Carte Blanche was sold by Hilton in the 1960s to the lender that became Citibank, and regulators soon forced that lender to sell it on.

Which Las Vegas casino name did Hilton's gambling arm, spun off in 1998 as Park Place, later adopt?

Caesars became the company's name in 2003, after Park Place bought Caesars Palace from Starwood. For a time it was the largest casino operator in the world.

Which British bookmaker bought Hilton International in 1987 and later renamed itself Hilton Group?

Ladbrokes paid $1.07 billion, and for years two unrelated companies ran Hiltons. The American one, barred from using the name abroad, launched Conrad Hotels instead.

Which bandleader's 1940 hit is named for the phone number of the Hotel Pennsylvania, once a Hilton?

Glenn Miller and his orchestra played the hotel's Cafe Rouge, and the song doubled as an advert: fans could ring the number to book a table at the band's shows.

Which capital city got Hilton's first hotel behind the Iron Curtain, opened in 1977?

Budapest's Hilton stands in the historic Buda Castle District and is built around the restored remains of a 13th-century Dominican cloister and monastery.